in the morning light
by lrviolet
Summary: Kiba is not a morning person, barely even active by the crack of noon.


**A/N:** Just some drabble for this underrated ship. Thought of them while seeing some domestic prompts lol. I haven't written anything for awhile now so I might come a bit rusty. Also, just a heads up, flashbacks are in between paragraphs. Comments are always loved!

* * *

Kiba is not a morning person, barely even active by the crack of noon. It's something Kurenai, his teacher for the duration of his adolescence, could not correct. Similarly his partner in crime Akamaru isn't any different – although who snores louder becomes a question of fact depending on the circumstance. Most of the time however, the snoring turns into a comprehensive cacophony of deep gurgles and low growls, so it is truly hard to tell who is the guiltier party.

Tamaki knows this after the second time she sleeps over. Being quite attached, Akamaru avoids leaving Kiba's side even in slumber, hence having an intruder – this third person who he is forced to tolerate because his master is undeniably smitten _, in love_ , happier whenever she is around – changes the game. Akamaru lays on the floor now, whimpering the first time Tamaki steals his spot. She giggles while remembering all the other firsts.

Out of habit she is up before the sun is, slipping out from under the off-white sheets, out of Kiba's tangled arms who rests rather quietly to her right. Careful not to wake either of them up, Tamaki tiptoes towards the slightly opened door, jammed by the muddy left boot her rowdy of a shinobi boyfriend must have used in yesterday's mission. She sighs. _There's a shoe stand just before the main door, will he ever even learn to use that?_ She picks it up, rolling her eyes and tossing it to the side upon finding its pair. _Men_. Men like Kiba sometimes make her wonder where in the world she made that wrong turn. She's imagining Granny Nekobaa's reaction now and it makes her tummy stir.

-x-

"I think I love you," he says with his unyielding baritone voice, one summer after they've met, far too early for weddings, but far too late for mending previously broken hearts.

Tamaki stiffens, creates a particular distance as she hangs her head in absolute surprise, not exactly confusion since she's known this particular moment to one day arrive. Kiba smiles affectionately, as though allowing her all the space and time and silence she needs before such words are therein returned (or the lack of them, he seems to be quite prepared for either, Tamaki notes).

"I think you're crazy." _Stupid, that's not how you should've replied_. But all her thoughts aren't as coherent, aren't as helpful even now to make sense. Yet, while leaving him to gawkily laugh off the answer, Tamaki finds her own fingers looping with his, and she leans closer, ear close to his chest hearing his unwavering heartbeat, and they walk like that around Konoha since that very day.

She likes to think both of them are right.

-x-

Morning enters the kitchen faster than the rest of the house, a beam lighting up the stacks of plastic bowls on the glass cupboards. As she opens the window, a striped stray cat manages to slide in, purring a good morning. She allows three more of its siblings, brown and gray and snowy, to scour the kitchen for leftovers (which she remembers taking out last night for them to feast).

The day begins as Tamaki boils some water for tea, boils some more for a curry she's been craving, and she thinks about her granny exclaiming disapproval of the lack of chili. She scribbles a note and pastes it on the fridge. _Invite Gran for lunch next week_. She wipes her hands dry almost apologetically and begins chopping ingredients for breakfast.

-x-

"I didn't raise you to live with an Inuzuka," comes along Nekobaa's verdict and Tamaki remembers when she used to be younger, when her grandmother's harsh words meant punishment till the afterlife. But she isn't a little girl anymore and some things really do change without you noticing them.

"I didn't choose to be raised by you either," Tamaki speaks, subtly trying to show still her respect for the woman who's given her a roof over her head and three meals a day, making bargains in a weapons shop, making ends meet. She ducks her head when silence swallows them, her fists balled in frustration.

Soon enough a lighthearted chuckle stops Tamaki from an internal breakdown as her grandmother turns to her, grins and adds: "Don't sleep too much with the dogs or you'll wake up having their fleas."

They say nothing afterwards because Tamaki knows her grandmother won't choose to stop her otherwise. She lets out a sigh of relief.

-x-

Akamaru emerges first from the bedroom sluggishly, a yawn even, paws making the wooden floor tiles creak and echo across the hall. His nose curiously scans the area: the cats in a corner, the curry by the stove, and Tamaki. Tamaki, Kiba's new companion – the scent of a female lingering in every room now. Tamaki knows it's not a special kind of scent: Akamaru's lived with Kiba's sister and mother and they're both quite unreservedly doting over the young man when he planned on moving out of the nest.

Tamaki watches Akamaru scrutinizing her, menacingly at first. He breaks the eye contact before Tamaki can ask how he's slept, a mutual agreement that they won't break into some sort of fight this early.

Nonetheless she squats underneath to his level, reaches for him and ruffles his graying fur. "Hey, you like curry don't you?"

She can't distinguish if his response is in the more positive side but she's sure it isn't in the negative either, or else Akamaru will have refused the coddling. Like he often passively denies any affection from her. He's mellowed down today, which is progress she'll boast later.

The first time they decide to meet is in Ichiraku's. She thinks this is a standard amongst first dates, sitting underneath the marquee and waiting for the bowl of noodles to cool off, a casual meeting between two _friends_. When for some reason she doesn't think they'll get along, she can always make a run for it, come up with an excuse that she needs to help her grandmother close up the shop in Soraku. Or something of that sort.

Her brain isn't really working that quite well when Kiba laughs.

He's laughing, pure as snow, childlike, uncontested when it comes to how raw and innocent of a melody it is in her ears. Tamaki wonders what's so funny, later on catching that it's her, her face probably, a smudge of beef stuck in between her teeth.

"Yeah, sorry, you're just so cute." Kiba is blushing.

"Shut up." She knows she is too.

She seethes in with embarrassment, punching Kiba's arm as hard as she could before realizing Akamaru's already ready to pounce at her if she touches another hair on Kiba.

Kiba seems to notice her flinching, and so his laughter fades and eventually scolds Akamaru to stop antagonizing the only ever girl who's agreed to go out with him.

Tamaki's relationship with Akamaru has been strained majority of the time since, but in fact is lesser nowadays with her actually living with him. All it takes is some getting used to. And a few amazing bath scrubs Tamaki had to conduct on the nin-dog.

-x-

Already almost two hours since she awoke, Tamaki sets the table with good curry, and she sits with both her legs up, unsteadily in her pajamas, today's paper in her hand, and she reads and she waits.

Kiba, as if on cue, lazily enters the dining, rubbing his possibly aching back and then slouching on the seat opposite Tamaki's, both his eyes barely open.

"Good morning." She attempts to sound nonchalant, although her train of thought has completely abandoned what she's reading and has focused completely on the man and his goatee, in his peaceful better moments.

"G'morning," he groggily manages to respond, but suddenly becomes alert with the smell of food in front of him. "Did you make this?"

Tamaki nods, like always, like his question is something of a routine that she's made to answer only to strengthen the truth behind what is already a fact.

"Yes, eat up before it goes cold."

An incoherent sound of approval escapes his mouth with a hidden vigor she's failed to notice a minute ago, but before Tamaki deciphers what it exactly it is that he just muttered, Kiba quickly consumes the meal before him, without a stop she fears a bit he might choke. Then, of course, this is Kiba – an appetite she's most accustomed with, and it'll be most unusual if otherwise he'll slow down.

"I love mornings!" He declares.

"Obviously."

"Especially when it's with you," Kiba says matter-of-factly, tapping her bowl with his spoon. When she realizes he's stopped eating, she looks up and finds him grinning ear to ear, the same stupid childish grin that gets her every time; his cheeks, though marked with red, brighten into a faint shade of red. He reaches for her hand, warm fingers caressing her open palm as she meets him halfway.

She loves mornings too. Obviously.


End file.
